Like Real People Do
by yukikos
Summary: He looked at her as if she was the sun but he had forgotten that if flew too close to the sun, he'd burn.


Toushiro had always been careful.

His paperwork was always in order, straight piles that were organized carefully and colour coated. He never lost one single piece of paper, it wasn't like him to be so careless.

Toushiro also never strayed.

He was a taichou, he had too many responsibilities to withhold. People depended on him and he just couldn't let them down.

But Toushiro had never been in love.

He loved his granny, his adopted sister and his fukutaichou when she wasn't drunk or missing work but he's never been in love. He's had crushes on girls but they were much too afraid of him when he was younger and he was now too busy to persuade a girl.

Then he met her.

Full of energy, lop sided grin and a ray of sunshine that loved to push his buttons. They seemed so different, at opposite ends of the spectrum - personality and appearance wise but they had fit so well together like circle and its missing piece. At first he didn't understand the reference; she explained that it was from a poem where a circle that was missing a piece kept rolling around until the missing piece was found. He found it amusing and even though he wouldn't admit it, a little cute.

He knew he couldn't catch feelings for the girl; she was human while he was dead - their worlds were not meant to collide. She was Ichigo Kurosaki's little sister who would undoubtedly rip his head off and break every bone in his body if he even had the slightest idea of him being with his sister. But when the eldest Kurosaki caught them in her room with clothes slightly out of place and bruised lips, the ex substitute shinigami looked at them with sad eyes and mumbled for them to be more careful for he had known what it was like to fall in love with someone you weren't supposed to. The option of falling in love with a human wasn't available to him, it was not a card in the hand he was played. Toushiro knew the consequences of falling for a human; he even scoffed at the idea of falling in love with one the idea years before he even met her.

But regardless of what he knew, he still fell. He denied it at first; they were just acquaintances - maybe even friends after so many years of quick visits and soccer games. It even seemed absurd to him at first, how could he like a human girl that teased him for being shorter than her? For heaven's sake, he was taller than her when they first met! She also never addressed by his title and treated him as if he was just some kid. He was the youngest taichou of the Gotei 13; he couldn't possibly be considered a child.

Toushrio found himself slowly love the way her eyes seemed to sparkle whenever she talked about soccer, about how she was going to go pro and then become a doctor as a side job as if it was child's play. He chuckled at the ridiculous notion but if anyone could do it, it'd be her. He also found himself loving the way she complained about how annoying her family was but wouldn't hesitate to jump in front of danger for them, as well as her need to protect people regardless if she had only known them for mere seconds or a lifetime. Although her brash and stubborn ways did often give him slight heart attacks with her careless nature, he understood why she did it. Although, part of him sometimes thought that her protective nature came from her family's line of hero complexes.

Toushiro realized they weren't that much different after all. Becoming a taichou at his age was no easy feat nor would becoming a doctor and soccer player at the same time. Their need to succeed and proving people wrong was something they had in common. They also had the need to protect people they loved, he wouldn't hesitate to jump into battle for his granny, his adopted sister and fukutaichou and she wouldn't hesitate to jump into battle for his ex captain, her twin sister and older brother.

Before he knew it, they were sneaking kisses behind trees and in places inside her house where they thought they couldn't be found. She often liked to run her fingers through his hair and he often liked to leave kisses down her neck. Although they couldn't keep their hands off of each other, they tried to be careful - making sure never to be around Urahara's shop or any places that shinigami tend to loiter but the key word had been tried. They had been caught by her entire family and his fukutaichou who swore not to tell a word, her taichou was happy again for the longest time and she couldn't bear to take that away from him.

It wasn't long until Toushiro found himself leaving during the middle of work just to go see her, something he had never done before. Even though he would had to stay up late to finish the paperwork, reminiscing to earlier that day seemed to be worth it all. Whenever she had a soccer game, he would be there to cheer her on without fail. His subconscious told him it was wrong to skip out of his duties as a captain but the way she reached for his arms after the winning the game shut his subconscious up. If his fukutaichou could drop work willy nilly so could he from time to time, right?

But days became weeks, as he found himself less at the Soul Society and more in the world of the living. His behaviour didn't go unnoticed, some of his fellow taichous knew of the reason and some even tried to cover for him. Ukitake spoke that he requested Toushiro to watch over the eldest Kurosaki which wasn't a complete lie; there had been an increase in hollow activity in Karakura for some strange reason. To his surprise, Kuchiki-taichou spoke up in his defence as well, stating that a taichou was needed from time to time due to the high reiatsus in Karakura. Toushrio suspected that it was for Kuchiki-fukutaichou who seemed more of an empty shell these days. Toushrio was grateful for his fellow taichous but the soutaichou didn't want to hear any of it and put Toushrio on a no leave suspension for a month. His fukutaichou was kind enough to deliver a message from him to the girl who held his heart in the real world.

After the month of suspension was lifted, Toushiro knew he couldn't see himself like this way anymore. He did the one thing he never thought he would do, he left.

He wrote a letter in an attempt to explain everything. He apologized to his fukutaichou, his squad and the people who had helped him along the way. He apologized to his adopted sister and even visited his granny before he departed. Along with his letter was his letter of resignation of a captain and even as a shinigami if that were possible. When his ex captain left the squad, he felt helpless and swore he would never do the same but here he was, following his footsteps.

Toushrio didn't feel any regrets though, he knew what would happen if he left - an uproar in the Seireitei but that seemed to be the last thing on his mind at the moment.

As soon as he stepped into the real world, Toushrio knew what he was going to do with his life. He would live out his years as a human or as close he could to even being one. He would enrol in her high school; maybe even join the boy's soccer team or the kendo team. After high school would be university. Toushiro figured he'd go into business seeing as he single handedly ran an entire squad by himself. How hard could it be to run a business? After university, he'd ask her to marry him. They'd have a wedding much like the ones he'd seen on television, she would be a vision in white and he'd be waiting for at the end. They'd have two kids, he thought. In a house they might be a little too big for their family of four but nothing was too good for them.

He had it all planned out, he knew that this is what he wanted. They had spoken about marriage before as a casual and joking manner but they both knew it was something they wanted. For he had never known what it was like to have a family with two parents and she who had once more wanted have that loving family structure that her family had but with him. This was going to be their life and Toushiro had no regrets.

Toushrio Hitsugaya was always careful, he never strayed but he did for her, Karin Kurosaki


End file.
